The Real Torture Is The Lies,Selective Amnesia And Scramble For Political Cover

The Democrat-dominated Senate Intelligence committee finally made public its report on the CIA’s interrogation policy during the Bush years. There was no credible reason to make this report public,since the Justice Department has already investigated this not once but twice and failed to file any charges.

These incidents of enhanced interrogation - which hardly constitute torture in any case,given the circumstances - occurred over a decade ago. Members of America's security establishment, including Democrats Leon Panetta and former CIA Director George Tenet were emphatic in their opposition to this report being released publicly because of the danger to national security. Releasing this and allowing the Professional Left and the media to go crazy has provided what amounts to a primer for jihadis in what to expect from American interrogators and what to claim was done to them in the future. It intimidates those men charged with interrogating known terrorists and makes them less effective and it endangers personnel serving overseas as well as to American prisoners in and the hands of Islamic State and elsewhere. As Colonel Ralph Peters and others put it, it amounted to aid and comfort to America's enemies..or would if we were actually in a declared war.

So why release this publicly now? Simple, really. It accomplishes three things. First it provides political cover for Democrats who were fully briefed about the enhanced interrogation techniques at the time and who now claim they knew nothing, particularly Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, wielding the gavel for the last time and Senator Jay D. Rockefeller IV from West Virginia who is now leaving the senate. The second reason is to afvance the narrative beloved by the Left, that America is always guilty. And that leads to the third reason, score settling with the CIA, and crippling it so that it no longer can function. The rest of the Democrats on the committee are either lame ducks on their way out who no longer care or hard edged members of the Left like Ron Wyden and Barbara Mikulski, who have always hated things like the CIA as a matter of principle.

Senator Rockefeller has been known to try this sort of thing before, and as it happens, there's a clear record he was fully briefed on all of this at the time. Senator Feinstein's record of selective memory on this is almost as laughable as her California colleague Nancy Pelosi's.

Yes, they knew, and just picked a convenient time to drop the bomb.

None of the Republicans on the committee participated in this dangerous nonsense and exercise in political thuggery,not even Susan Collins. This committee report was exclusively a Democrat project.

NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel was fairly blunt about this, to the point where I'm surprised it got on the air:

I think this is really about changing the narrative of American history. This process went on, it was a brutal process. It was legal at the time, whether it should have been legal or not, I think, is highly debatable. It was legal at the time. The CIA was asked to do it. The CIA was passing on its intelligence to the President. So everyone in the world knew what was going on, including by the way, the Senate, which is now pretending to be a bit of a babe in the woods. They knew what was going on at the time and in many cases were quite happy with the intelligence they were getting.

I think this is about rewriting the narrative of history. When we look back, how are we going to remember the period? Are we going to remember a period in which the rogue evil CIA was beating people, in some cases to death, and the politicians didn't know about it? Or are we going to look back and say the politicians were plenty aware of this, the CIA beat people to death, and then Senate tried to come out and say, "Well, you know, we didn't know anything about it," and trying to wash their hands of the situation? And to be honest, I think it's a little bit of the latter.

Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., a 31-year CIA veteran who ran the program reiterated this in an outspoken editorial today in the Washington Post. Not only was congress fully briefed, but they actually urged the Agency to do whatever it took to defeat al-Qaeda in the days after 9/11.

Like most essentially disloyal and self serving politicos, they were more than willing for far braver men and women to do what was needed to protect them..just as they are now willing to disparage their efforts and put the lives of others at risk for their own personal gain and false narrative.

Not only that,but a bi-partisan group of former CIA heads and intelligence personnel, in anticipation of this nonsense have actually put together a response and a website to give a true picture of what actually went on, and to rebut the more egregious of the report's accusations.

The allegations themselves? A lot of them are second and third hand accounts of supposed misdeeds that remind me a lot of the sort of 'evidence' used in failed attempts to try to court martial and imprison the Camp Pendleton 8 or those three Navy Seals who performed a hazardous mission to capture the terrorist in charge of murdering four Americans in Falluja. But briefly, what the media frenzy is about here is that in order to save American lives, our CIA interrogators and others (of course, the report only mentions and attacks the CIA) water boarded known terrorists, kept them in stress positions for long periods of time, subjected them to sleep deprivation, and at times allegedly threatened their loved ones to induce them to give intelligence on what were imminent threats to American lives.

Oh, the humanity!

I've actually explored the subject of torture before, back when Attorney General Eric Holder released the so-called 'torture memos' which came to nothing except to seriously lower the morale and efficiency of the men tasked with interrogating America's enemies and to inform al-Qaeda and other jihadis about our interrogation techniques and the limits placed on our interrogators:

The problem with most physical torture is that it can be incredibly inefficient much of the time. Given an individual with a sufficiently strong will, it can take hours, days, months or even years to accomplish the desired end.

Combining the administration of drugs like sodium penathol, baradanga, and sodium amytal with a skilled interrogator is normally quicker, more efficient and easier on the basement janitorial crew afterwards. It also eliminates the nasty problem of false confessions and information that sometimes tends to go with the territory when you get your answers by using an electric drill on somebody's hands. However, there's no doubt that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques can work quite well, especially when a threat is imminent and time is of the essence. And they're useful tools as psychological threats to promote cooperation, even if the techniques themselves aren't used.

I'll even go a step further and let you know that if I thought a jihadi had knowledge of an imminent attack (which turned out to be the case with Khalid Sheik Mohammed and probably with others)and I was in a position to make the call, I'd have done exactly the same thing and perhaps even gone a bit further. American lives matter, to use a slightly different version of a popular slogan out there these days.

When I wrote that five years ago, I suggested that what was really needed was a covert, clear policy that could be invoked in situations when information is needed quickly and American lives are at stake as well as suggesting a few other non-violent but effective psychological techniques that could be used in such cases.

Of course, this being the era of Obama, nothing like that has even been considered, let alone implemented.

For now, this sordid attempt at revisionism and political kabuki theater will of course be front page news,pushed by the usual suspects. Of course, none of those usual suspects is going to blame these senators and their accomplices - I can think of no more appropriate word - when and if we get hit with a major terrorist strike in the future.

Nor will they want anyone to make the connection that it happened because we missed out on operational intelligence because our CIA was handcuffed in how it gathered information, or because our interrogators were too intimidated to question jihadis in custody with sufficient vigor to save American lives.

Instead, they'll be looking to blame someone else. Anybody else.

UPDATE: The Committee's Republicans were unanimous is disputing this report's findings. In fact, they have filed a minority rebuttal disputing it in detail.

NBA Players Call Off Israel Visit

Magic Johnson and a number of other past and present NBA stars were scheduled to attend the inauguration ceremony of Jerusalem's new multi-purpose sports arena in September.

Without any explanation, they suddenly called it off.

The Jerusalem Municipality and the event's production company, Ariel, were surprised to receive a phone call from the stars' representatives on Sunday, informing them that they were cancelling their participation in the festive event.

Ariel and the municipality have been working on the Jerusalem Arena inauguration ceremony, which will take place on September 4, for several months now.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat had invested many efforts to complete the construction and increase the number of seats in the arena after many delays over the years.

The municipality had planned a major opening, which would create a media buzz around the new sports complex. The highlight of the event was supposed to be a festive exhibition game between 10 retired and present NBA players and the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball club.

The guest of honor would have been Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Jr., one of the greatest basketball players of all times.





Ariel CEO Zion Turgeman confirmed that the NBA players had canceled their visit to Jerusalem. "This is a serious blow to the arena's inauguration. We have been working on the opening event for a long time, and now we will have to readjust."

Turgeman added there was no plan to postpone the inauguration event. "We intend to invite 5,000 soldiers to the opening in order to thank the IDF for its contribution to the state," he said.

Mixing brave warriors with a bunch of pampered, overpaid cowards? I think Magic and his buds did Jerusalem a huge favor. They may look tall on the basketball court, but they've revealed themselves as little men and such creatures are never missed, not really.

The real guests of honor will be sitting in the stands.



-Selah-

An Honor Killing On Campus

 

Regular members of Joshua's Army may recall the name Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

She was raised as a Muslima in Somalia and Saudi Arabia, survived female genital mutilation, beatings, abuse and various aspects of Somalia's internecine clan warfare and became a devout member of the Muslim Brotherhood, after which her questions about Islam and the life she was leading led her to escape being 'given' in marriage to a distant male relative she had never met.and flee to Holland. There, she was granted Dutch citizenship and eventually became a member of the Dutch parliament where she became a voice alerting the people of her adopted country to the menace of radical Islam, and against the abuse of Muslim women and children in the Netherland's Islamic ghettos.

She later collaborated with the late filmmaker Theo Van Gogh on a film called 'Submission', which chronicled the plight of many Muslim women victimized as she was by the traditional tribal culture.The film caused a firestorm of protest among Muslims. Van Gogh was murdered in broad daylight by a fanatic Muslim while cycling to work one morning in 2004 and then had his corpse ritually mutilated. A note was pinned to Van Gogh's corpse promising Ayaan Hirsi Ali that she was the next target, with explicit Qu'rannic details of her `crimes against Islam' as an 'apostate', a death sentence in Islam. Other death threats followed, and Ayaan has lived under 24 hour security protection ever since.

She went through the experience of being forced to move out of her apartment because her Dutch neighbors were annoyed that the security protection 'inconvenienced them' and because they were afraid that the violence directed towards Ayaan Hirshi Ali might involve them. And the Dutch government, which was obligated to pay for her security as a member of Parliament also disliked the cost, the inconvenience and the political stigma of protecting an 'enemy of Islam' in a country that's over 25% Muslim, so they found a trumped up reason to take away her citizenship and force her to step down from her seat in parliament. Whereupon, she came here to America and became a noted author and speaker. You can read her story in her books 'Infidel', 'Nomad',and 'The Caged Virgin'

Since she came to America, she's been a tireless advocate for freedom and for women's rights,at the risk of her life and safety. Among other things, she helped form the AHA Foundation, which works to protect and defend the rights of women in the West from oppression justified by religion and culture.

So Brandeis decided to honor Ayaan Hirshi Ali. She was to be their commencement speaker and receive an honorary degree.

But when the local chapters of Muslim Brotherhood fronts like CAIR and the Muslim Student's Association heard about this, they went absolutely ballistic and were able to rope in enough guilty and frightened non-Muslim Lefties to go along with the mob to get Ayaan's honorary degree 'rescinded' and her invitation to speak revoked.

"This is a real slap in the face to Muslim students," said senior Sarah Fahmy, a member of the Muslim Student Association who created the petition said before the university withdrew the honor.

"But it's not just the Muslim community that is upset but students and faculty of all religious beliefs," she said. "A university that prides itself on social justice and equality should not hold up someone who is an outright Islamophobic."

Thomas Doherty, chairman of American studies, refused to sign the faculty letter. He said it would have been great for the university to honor "such a courageous fighter for human freedom and women's rights, who has put her life at risk for those values."

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group, said, "It is unconscionable that such a prestigious university would honor someone with such openly hateful views."

The organization sent a letter to university President Frederick Lawrence on Tuesday requesting that it drop plans to honor Ali.

"This makes Muslim students feel very uneasy," Joseph Lumbard, an American convert to Islam and the chairman of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, said in an interview. "They feel unwelcome here."

The university said that the decision had been made after a discussion between Ali and university President Frederick Lawrence.According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, that 'discussion' consisted of a phone call made simply to inform her after the decision had already be made.

A key part of the decision was said to be a statement by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in a 2007 Reason interview in which she said about Islam, "Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars."

"She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women's rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world," said the university's statement. "That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values."

What are those core values?

Not too long ago, Brandei, which is a Jewish sponsored but secular university awarded an honorary degree to writer Tony Kushner at the 2006 commencement, one of the most bigoted and self-hating anti-Zionists on the planet.

Kushner has a number of inflammatory statements on record, like, “The biggest supporters of Israel are the most repulsive members of the Jewish community,”  and saying on another occasion that Israel’s founding a “mistake,” and that it “it would have been better if Israel never happened.”

 Brandeis (at least then) had a number of pro-Israel students and faculty, but when they raised questions about the propriety of a Jewish sponsored university,especially one named after one of the leaders of the Zionist movement in America honoring the likes of Tony Kushner, here's what the university president told them.

Brandeis bestows honorary degrees as a means of acknowledging the outstanding accomplishments or contributions of individual men and women in any of a number of fields of human endeavor. Just as Brandeis does not inquire into the political opinions and beliefs of faculty or staff before appointing them, or students before offering admission, so too the University does not select honorary degree recipients on the basis of their political beliefs or opinions.

Of course, Kushner, aside from his 'anti-Zionist' credentials is outspokenly gay and a member of New York's Leftist intelligentsia. Ayaan Hirshi Ali? Well yeah, she's black, but she's a conservative who's very much off the reservation. And let's repeat the mantra, everyone...thou.shalt.not.criticize.Islam.ever.

Another interesting recipient of an honorary degree from Brandeis is Israeli author Amos Oz. Oz is a rigorously secular denizen of the Far Left who ran unsuccessfully in 1973 for the Knesset as part of the Moked (New Left/Communist Front) Party. He is sharply critical of Zionism as well as Judaism in general almost to the point of hatred, describing religious Jews as "Hezbollah in a skullcap."

Speaking in 1989 to his pals in the peace at all cost crowd in Tel Aviv, Oz described the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria as “A small sect, a messianic sect, obtuse and cruel, emerged a few years ago from a dark corner of Judaism, and it is threatening to destroy all that is dear and sacred to us, to impose on us a wild and insane blood ritual ... They are guilty of crimes against humanity, their Jewishness is of the Hezbollah kind, their Zionism is like Abu Nidal’s."

Then there was this, in one of his essays: “Why didn’t Israel develop as the most egalitarian and creative social democratic society in the world? I would say that one of the major factors was the mass immigration of Holocaust survivors, Middle Eastern Jews and non-socialist and even anti-socialist Zionists.”

“Then there were the masses of Orthodox Jews… to whom socialism meant blasphemy and atheism.”

“As for the North African Jews,” Oz writes, they were “conservative, puritan, observant and family oriented and to some extent, chauvinistic, militaristic and xenophobic.”

Oz has even maintained a friendship with Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, who's currently serving five life terms in Israeli custody for the multiple murders of Amos Oz's fellow Israelis.

In short, Oz, in spite of his talent as a writer is a great example of a Jewish anti-semite. But Brandeis had no problem awarding him an honorary degree, in 1998.

I guarantee you there were no Muslims protesting about Brandeis honoring these two on the grounds of disrespect for Judaism or the feelings of religious Jewish students..

So I suppose these are the 'core values' of Brandeis. You have to be a celebrity of the Left...conservatives and classic liberals not allowed. You can criticize Judaism and Christianity all you want, but you must appease Islam in your public life,always, no exceptions allowed. Or someone could get hurt. And if you're a self-hating Leftist secular Jew who despises Israel, you're practically a slam dunk to receive an honorary degree and get an opportunity to speak and indoctrinate the students at Brandeis.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali had a few things to say about this, talking to FOX's Megyn Kelly last night:



Yesterday, Ayaan Hirsi Ali issued a statement expanding on her remarks to Megyn Kelly:

Yesterday Brandeis University decided to withdraw an honorary degree they were to confer upon me next month during their Commencement exercises. I wish to dissociate myself from the university’s statement, which implies that I was in any way consulted about this decision. On the contrary, I was completely shocked when President Frederick Lawrence called me — just a few hours before issuing a public statement — to say that such a decision had been made.

When Brandeis approached me with the offer of an honorary degree, I accepted partly because of the institution’s distinguished history; it was founded in 1948, in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, as a co-educational, nonsectarian university at a time when many American universities still imposed rigid admission quotas on Jewish students. I assumed that Brandeis intended to honor me for my work as a defender of the rights of women against abuses that are often religious in origin. For over a decade, I have spoken out against such practices as female genital mutilation, so-called “honor killings,” and applications of Sharia Law that justify such forms of domestic abuse as wife beating or child beating. Part of my work has been to question the role of Islam in legitimizing such abhorrent practices. So I was not surprised when my usual critics, notably the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), protested against my being honored in this way.

What did surprise me was the behavior of Brandeis. Having spent many months planning for me to speak to its students at Commencement, the university yesterday announced that it could not “overlook certain of my past statements,” which it had not previously been aware of. Yet my critics have long specialized in selective quotation — lines from interviews taken out of context — designed to misrepresent me and my work. It is scarcely credible that Brandeis did not know this when they initially offered me the degree.

What was initially intended as an honor has now devolved into a moment of shaming. Yet the slur on my reputation is not the worst aspect of this episode. More deplorable is that an institution set up on the basis of religious freedom should today so deeply betray its own founding principles. The “spirit of free expression” referred to in the Brandeis statement has been stifled here, as my critics have achieved their objective of preventing me from addressing the graduating Class of 2014. Neither Brandeis nor my critics knew or even inquired as to what I might say. They simply wanted me to be silenced. I regret that very much.

Not content with a public disavowal, Brandeis has invited me “to join us on campus in the future to engage in a dialogue about these important issues.” Sadly, in words and deeds, the university has already spoken its piece. I have no wish to “engage” in such one-sided dialogue. I can only wish the Class of 2014 the best of luck — and hope that they will go forth to be better advocates for free expression and free thought than their alma mater.

I take this opportunity to thank all those who have supported me and my work on behalf of oppressed woman and girls everywhere.

In a way, what Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to say about feeling sorry for Brandeis students hits the nail on the head. The confused, frightened dhimmis and Leftists who got in line with CAIR and the MSA to silence her participated in the equivalent of an intellectual honor killing. They have no idea of how Islamists regard them. They are simply Lenin's 'useful idiots' personified. And many of them will remain clueless - until the knife is at their throat.

Obama Secretly Rewrote Freedom Of Information Act to Exclude Him And All WH Docs

 

It has come to light the President Obama, who promised the most transparent administration history was lying to the American people - again.

On April 15, 2009, a mere four months after he was sworn into office, the president decided to secretly rewrite the Freedom Of Information Act, which is designed to inform the public and provide oversight of various government activities and behavior to keep any of what it called “White House equities” from being released without a White House review:

The rewrite came in an April 15, 2009, memo from then-White House Counsel Greg Craig instructing the executive branch to let White House officials review any documents sought by FOIA requestors that involved "White House equities."

That phrase is nowhere to be found in the FOIA, yet the Obama White House effectively amended the law to create a new exception to justify keeping public documents locked away from the public.

The equities exception is breathtaking in its breadth. As the Greg memo put it, any document request is covered, including "congressional committee requests, GAO requests, judicial subpoenas and FOIA requests."

And it doesn't matter what format the documents happen to be in because, according to Greg, the equities exception "applies to all documents and records, whether in oral, paper, or electronic form, that relate to communications to and from the White House, including preparations for such communications."

This secret rewrite basically stopped federal agencies from answering FOIA requests which might include “White House equities” within the 20 days required by law, and there is no time limit on how long a 'review' might take. It covers whatever the White House says it covers and keeps whatever it wants hidden away as long as the White House wants to.

Since the White House gets to decide for itself what “White House equities” consist of and how long the White House feels like taking to review requests which might possibly include them, what the president and his team have effectively done is to make the FOIA law meaningless. They can label nearly everything as a 'White House Equity' and stonewall and exclude the public and the media forever,or pick a time to sign off on whatever does get released when it's politically advantageous, if at all.

In one case cited by Cause of Action, the response to a request from a Los Angeles Times reporter to the Department of the Interior for "communications between the White House and high-ranking Interior officials on various politically sensitive topics" was delayed at least two years by the equities review.

"Cause of Action is still waiting for documents from 16 federal agencies, with the Department of Treasury having the longest pending request of 202 business days.

"The Department of Energy is a close second at 169 business days. The requests to the Department of Defense and Department of Health and Human Services have been pending for 138 business days," the report said.

By the way, rewriting a portion of existing law secretly like this by the Executive Branch without going through congress is not only highly unethical, it is illegal and unconstitutional. It is a clear violation of President Obama's Oath of Office and de facto grounds for impeachment all by itself.

An actual Speaker of the House who had respect for congress and cared about the Constitution  would make a major public stink, bring charges in the House and submit them to the senate for trial to force the Democrats to vote against such an outright violation of law - if they dared. Unfortunately, John Boehner isn't that kind of Speaker.

The House Passes The Budget, 332-94

The budget deal crafted by Paul Ryan and Democrat Senator Patty Murray passed the house with both parties split on the matter.Republicans were split 169-62, while Democrats divided themselves 163-32.

Oddly enough, many Tea Party conservatives were joined in voting no by a number of far Left Democrats, who were upset because they felt the deal didn't create enough new spending, and was not tied to an extension of emergency unemployment insurance aid, set to expire before the end of the year.

In the end,party leadership in both parties shoved this through, with as Ryan counseled “not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., telling Democrats to “embrace the suck” of the agreement.

I think I've already been pretty clear about what I think of this budget deal...I think it stinks to high heaven. It allows a large increase more discretionary spending now in exchange for a paltry $23 billion in cuts much later...maybe.

I especially like what David Stockman, President Reagan's former budget director had to say about this nonsense:



The political rationale for the GOP in crafting our first budget in five years is that they want to avoid a government shutdown becoming the main topic of conversation rather than the failure of ObamaCare. I reject that utterly... first of all because it says implicitly that there isn't a Republican in the house or senate capable of explaining to the American people what kind of road to ruin we're on, and why they threat of a shutdown is necessary to make President Obama and his party institute some kind of fiscal sanity, and second because ObamaCare is going to continue to be the gift that keeps on giving as employer offered plans are targeted starting January 2014.

 Even if that wasn't true, it is no excuse for congressmen and congresswomen to totally abandon their responsibility because of what the consultant class is telling them. They are, after all, there to govern. Here, by the way are the names of those in the house who voted against this, with the Republicans in the non-italicized print.

I have no idea at this point what to make of Paul Ryan. He's obviously a smart guy, but what are we to make of someone who claims to champion fiscal responsibility on the one hand while endorsing budget busting amnesty for illegal aliens on the other?

As for John Boehner and the rest of the GOP leadership, the sooner they're gone, the better.

'Me And My Big Mouth' - UK's Cameron Backs Off From Syria Attack

British PM David Cameron backed down - way down- from his previous bellicose rhetoric about having the UK 'punish' Syria after what amounted to a political revolt in Parliament and what the Telegraph describes as "..senior military figures expressing concerns over the wisdom of the mission."

Considering how Britain has downsized its military to the point of no return and essentially scuttled the Royal Navy to the level of a coastal defense force, I'd say those senior military figures were right on the money.

Just three hours before Cameron folded, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary said it was “very important” for the UK not to leave it too long before launching strikes against Assad’s regime. Apparently it'll wait for some time.

Unlike our own lawless chief executive, Cameron at least took the Syria strike to Parliament for a vote, unfortunately after he opened his mouth about how gung ho he was to get Britain embroiled.I give him that much.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, and a succession of senior Tories (Conservatives, Cameron's party) had spoken out against the UK being part of a military strike on Syria and let Cameron know in no uncertain terms that he had very little political support for hitting Assad.

So Cameron put his tail between his legs and ran for cover, now saying that he'll wait until he gets, you know, actual proof from the UN inspectors on site before me makes a decision. And he won't even make a decision without a second 'aye' vote from parliament...which isn't likely to happen.

So the Brits will be sitting this out.

The Obama White House, in response said they “respect the British Parliament”.

This is all well and good. I'm firmly opposed to a western intervention in Syria. But just imagine if we needed to Brits to help us out with an important military mission and they weaseled out of a commitment to support us like this. Could you imagine Israel, Canada,Australia or Japan doing it? I couldn't.

Why are we allied with these people again?